From Slumber leaks the Black Sea
by Raloire
Summary: His name is Jimmy Novak and nothing bad has ever happened to him, nor should it. At night his dreams always have four others that accompany him, or is he accompanying them? They have been there for so long he can no longer remember.


**From Slumber leaks the Black Sea**

* * *

His name is Jimmy Novak and nothing bad has ever happened to him. At least, nothing extreme. He gets paper cuts and one time in high school he got his nose broken by a kid who was a head taller than him but he's never been mugged and he's never broken a bone before.

His name is Jimmy Novak and he is a simple Christian man with a small family. Logically nothing bad has and never should happen to him. He gets along with his neighbours and lives in a secure area. His daughter Claire gets good grades and sometimes they stick her tests on the fridge and mention them in their prayers before dinner.

His name is Jimmy Novak and nothing bad has ever happened to him, nor should it. He lives a balanced, peaceful and particularly bland life that shouldn't catch anyone's attention for that long.

At night his dreams always have four others that accompany him, or is he accompanying them? They have been there for so long he can no longer remember. Most of them share his face but one, who looks familiar though he can't remember where he's seen their face before. The space they share is ever changing, though he suspects that they all have some influence over it. A black sea crashes wave after wave against glass walls of what seems to be an office building, though he still finds his couch amongst the garden filled with roses and the choking reek of ash. But seeing as they are simply dreams, surely none of its important.

Some days he hears them when he's awake.

They are a buzz that itches inside his eardrums, a ringing that numbs everything else, and whispers of old languages that he can never hope to learn. They're not too distracting even if occasionally he'll stop and ask if anyone else can hear them too.

He takes the pills like Amelia asks him anyway, because nothing is more important than family. He doesn't understand why but since the dreams began he feels like he's going to be swept away in the drift and lose them forever. So he takes the pills and doesn't mention them again.

He's started being able to tell the difference between the four of them now, their voices included; Not-His-Face talks about herding humans and often ignores him, and the broken man who used to look at everything with such curiosity but now simply stares off into space while wearing hospital clothes that are far too big for him, the other two wear trench coats and throw taunts and threats at each other, one of them is light and space, the other is black water and everlasting hunger.

Life goes by just the same though; he comes home from work, eats dinner with his family, spends time with Claire but not too much time because she's growing and needs space, and stays awake for as long as he can while he lies next to Amelia focusing on her breathing as his lifeline so he won't get lost in the dark and the echoes.

He's leaving for work one morning when a black car pulls over and a familiar face ushers him inside. Jimmy sits opposite of two men who share the same shit eating grin and takes a second to acknowledge how surreal it is, the last time he checked he was awake.

"Jimmy, so good to finally meet you in person. Dick. You should recognise my friend here." he cocked his head in his doppelganger's direction. "Now I'm sure you're aware of our stance towards humans, but we're willing to make an exception with you."

"Why would you do that?" He paused, warily glancing at the ink smudges on his doppelganger's trench coat, "What do you want from me?"

"Just to make a deal, that's all." He leaned forward slightly and that was all he needed to do in order to make Jimmy feel truly trapped in this suddenly all too small car. "I could invest in your business, or maybe you'd prefer for Claire to get a scholarship hmm? You want the best for you family, don't you, Jimmy?"

The pause that followed was suffocating. The two monsters sitting across from him were horrifyingly real. As if the realm the smelt of ash and the raging black sea had leaked into his life, threatening to swallow it whole in both the sleeping and waking worlds. Dick and the Doppelganger, with their human suits, sat across from him. Dick and the Doppelganger, who regularly threw taunts about how useless the others were to stop them, rounding up human cattle, sat across from him. Dick and the Doppelganger, who know about his family and where he lives, sat across from him.

"Don't go near my family, please, don't hurt them." Slipped from his lips before he could restrain them and apparently they could smile wider. Jimmy wondered if maybe the skin would stretch further and reveal impossible rows of teeth and leak out their inky substance if they continued.

"We need a yes or a no, Jimmy. Then in a couple of days you can walk back home a stronger man."

He wants to try jumping out of the car door, he wants to dash home take Claire out of school and usher his family into a car so they can run away. These nightmares of his would stop him though, so he resigns himself and repeats his question, "What do you want from me?"

"We're just filling in good old Dad's shoes with the whole creation business, seeing as he ain't in charge anymore and, you see, thanks to our telepathic bond to you, you, are the perfect candidate for it all. Not the first of course, we wouldn't have risked that."

"I don't understand."

"You don't need too, you'll be asleep for a couple of days while the procedure takes place and then we'll send you home, and check up on you occasionally, and we'll leave your family for you. Sound good?"

Jimmy hunched his shoulders, shuffled his feet, before deciding that nothing is more important than family.

"If you leave them out of all this, what you're doing to people, then yes."


End file.
